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Idea
]]In philosophy, an idea is a mental representational image of an object, as well as abstract concepts that do not present as mental images. The ability to create and understand the meaning of ideas is considered to be an essential and defining feature of human beings. History Divine Illumination There have been a few main theories concerning the source and origin of our ideas. Augustine of Hippo argued for the "divine illumination of the intellect", a notion that dated back to antiquity. The process of human thought needs be aided by some sort of supernatural assistance; by "divine grace" in Christian parlance. It is an alternative to naturalism in epistemology, and it was an important theory for both neo-Platonism and Augustinianism. Socrates said in the Apology that infants have inner voices that suggest to not do something potentially harmful, and Socrates argued that an invisible spirit gave these suggestions. About 750 years later, Augustine emphasized divine illumination in our thought, without which humans would be incapable of reasoning. Augustine said that the mind needs to be enlightened from a mind from outside in order to find truth, and that, "You have heard nothing true from me which you have not told me." Minds need an intelligible light from God in order to know, especially in regard to knowing eternal truths that are greater than the mind itself. Augustine's theory was defended by Christian philosophers during the Middle Ages, including Franciscans such as Bonaventure. Criticism ]]The doctrine of divine illumination had its critics, including Thomas Aquinas, who denied that, in this life, we have divine ideas as an object of thought, and that divine illumination is sufficient on its own. He also argued against the notion of continuing divine influence on human thought, believing that people have the capacity to think for themselves. Aquinas was a proponent of the notion that intellectual knowledge is the result of the abstraction of general ideas from the images that are imprinted in our minds from sensory data. Defenders After Aquinas, a principled defender of divine illumination was Henry of Ghent. Henry argued against Aquinas, saying that our knowledge must be assisted by divine illumination. He believed that ideas can be compared with a created exemplar, which we have in the soul, and an eternal exemplar outside of the soul. No comparison to a created exemplar can give us infallible truth, and divine illumination supplies infallible truth. Henry's defense of divine illumination was attacked by another supporter of the theory, Duns Scotus, who believed that Henry's defense would lead to skepticism. Active/Agent Intellect ]]Active/agent intellect is a concept in both classical and medieval philosophy that is connected to the theory of hylomorphism, referring to the formal aspect of intellectual knowledge. The nature of the active intellect was a subject of intense discussion, especially in medieval philosophy, with Muslim, Jewish, and Christians seeking to reconcile Aristotle's "body and soul" with their own religions. Aristotle's On the Soul contains the idea of the active intellect, in which he held that matter is potentiality, and that it is necessary in the soul, too, that the distinct aspects of the potentiality of matter and the productive thing (by which things are formed) are present. Aristotle made the case of two intellects: passive (latent capacity) and active (which activates the latent capacity). The passive intellect is the material thought, while the active intellect is the active principle which forms thought and activates the passive intellect. He drew a comparison with light's formation of impotent colors and the intellect in the mind, saying that they both make potential things what they are. As well as being without attributes and unmixed, the active is always greater than the passive, as a governing source is above the material that it works on. Epistome (intellectual and rational knowledge) is in its being at work (in its potential) is the same as the thing it knows, as it does not take precedence in time. This does not mean that it occasionally thinks; the active intellect is always at work. When it is separated, it is active thought, and the active intellect is eternal and everlasting. Aristotle's view of a human afterlife was knowledge surviving death, but our personal identity does not survive death. Aristotle infers that there is some form of activity, and that the distinction between capacity and activity must exist in the soul as well. He later equates the active intellect with God, a theory in both ancient times and the Middle Ages. People have debated Aristotle's intentions for years, especially whether it is a part of the soul, or from God. The three positions concerning active intellect are Aristotle's correlation of active intellect with his stance in his Book Twelve of his Metaphysics ''(active intellect is God); the case that it is not God, but is still the same for all humans, and that it is spiritual intelligence in between God and mankind; and Aquinas' theory that the active intellect is a faculty of each human soul. Middle Ages ]]Early Greek commentators of Aristotle regarded the active intellect as a power external to the human mind, with Alexander of Aphrodisius equating it with God. However, others believed that it was external to the human mind, but was instead a form of intelligence, not God. Along with Neoplatonic views, these philosophies influenced the development of Arabic philosophy, which was later commented upon by Latin philosophers. The Muslim philosopher Avicenna and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides believed that the active intellect was external to the human mind, and that it was a being independent of man. Their position was that it was the lowest of the ten eminences/intelligences descending through the heavenly spheres. Maimonides believes that prophecy is a revelation from the divine being through man's active intellect. More strictly Aristotelian thinkers such as Averroes believed in the "conjunction of the intellect", the view that philosophers could conjoin their potential intellect with the active intellect and achieve a state of philosophical nirvana. Muslim and Jewish Aristotelians posited a single external active intellect due to their beliefs that all rational beings posess, or can access, a fixed state of concepts; a unified, correct knowledge of the universe. The only way that all human minds posess the same correct knowledge is if they can all have access to central knowledge, the "mind of the universe", which makes all other thought processes possible. In Medieval Europe, Siger of Brabant agreed with Averroes on every point. Thomas Aquinas, however, argued against the Averroist position, claiming that the active intellect is part of the individual human personality, distinct faculties of the soul. An obscure school, appealing to Alexander of Aphrodisius, rejected linking the active intellect to the immortality of the soul. It was viewed as a force triggering intellection in the human mind, causing thoughts to pass from potentiality to actuality. That force was argued either be external to the soul or is a faculty of the soul. The agent intellect must not be confused with the "intellect in act", the result of the triggering done by the agent intellect. Agent intellect is closer to the psychological term "active knowledge", while a person's cumulated knowledge can be one's "acquired intellect". Innatism ]]Innatism is the notion of the existence of innate ideas. In both philosophy and psychology, it is a concept or knowledge said to be universal to all humanity; something that all people are born with, rather than learning through experience. Innatism is controversial, as it is an aspect of a long-running nature vs. nurture debate regarding human nature. The theory has its origins in Plato, who argues that, if there are certain concepts that we know are true without experience, we have a pre-natal, innate knowledge of things. Since Plato, there has been a long-running philosophical debate concerning innate ideas, which was later a debate between John Locke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Innate ideas are said to belong to a fundamental level of human cognition. Rene Descartes believed that knowledge of God is innate in everyone, while empiricists such as Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume believed that human knowledge is obtained through sensory experience, not through ''a priori reasoning. Immanuel Kant ended the impasse between the rationalists and empiricists by synthesizing the two views, although his success in doing so has been debated. ]]For Descartes, innate knowledge and ideas is something inborn, and that something that is innate is effectively present from birth (although it might not reveal itself then). Descartes' comparison of innate knowledge to an innate disease, which may show up later in life, suggests that, if another event prevents the disease/knowledge from occurring, the knowledge still exists, despite not having been expressed. Leibniz suggested that we are born with certain innate ideas, such as mathematical truisms such as 1+1=2, which does not require empirical evidence. Empirical evidence can only show us that concepts are true in the present, not in the whole of history. Leibniz called these mathematical truisms "necessary truths." Another example is "What is, is," and "It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be" (the Principle of Non-Contradiction). Leibniz argued that such truisms are universally asserted, and that they are acknowledged by all to be true; it must be due to their status as innate ideas. Empirical evidence can serve to bring to the surface some innate principles, serving as a catalyst. He compared this to needing to hear only the first few notes to recall the melody of a song. The main antagonist of innate ideas was John Locke, who argued that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth, and that all ideas are constructed in the mind through constant composition and decomposition. In his essay Concerning Human Understanding, he argues that universal assent proves nothing, apart from that there is universal assent. Even a phrase such as "What is, is" is not always agreed upon, as infants and old people might not be able to have the ability to think about it. Locke also said that humans can be aware of the fact that they already knew the melody to the song, and that hearing the first few notes would confirm this. The same knowledge regarded as a priori according to Leibniz is actually a posteriori knowledge, which has been lost or forgotten by the unaware person. Scientific ideas ]]Plato raised an important epistemological quandry in reasoning about the validity of knowledge, questioning how humans have ideas that are not conclusively derivable from our environments. Noam Chomsky took up this issue, seeing the problem as a philosophical framework for the scientific inquiry into innatism, and he believed that his linguistic theories had an answer. Our linguistic systems contain systemic complexity which supposedly could not be empirically derived. Essentially, human's accurate grammatical knowledge cannot be gained through experience; humans are born with innate grammar, enabling the language learner to categorize language into a system. The ability to construct and judge sentences is gained from innate knowledge, and Chomsky believes that language provides a window into the human mind. If this is so, at least a part of human knowledge consists of cognitivity, and that it is gained from the mind itself, not solely through experiences; at least some of that information must be innate. Evidence for innatism has been found in the "Blue Brain Project", in which scientists discovered that neurons transmit signals without needing experiences, thereby creating innate knowledge. In tests run on rats, the rats all displayed similar characteristics, suggesting that their neuronal circuits had been created prior to their existence. Some of the building blocks of our knowledge are genetic, and we are born with them. This validates Leibniz's logic. Human nature ]]Human nature refers to distinctive characteristics such as thinking and behavior. The concept of nature began in Greek philosophy, particularly with the teleological approach used by Aristotle. By his account, human nature causes human beings to become what they are, existing somehow independently of individual humans, which also shows a special connection between human nature and divinity. Nature creating God has intentions and goals, similar to human intentions and goals. One of these goals is humanity living naturally. The existence of the invariable and metaphysical human nature has been historically debated, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau believing that humans know nothing of human nature. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has relevance to the discussiont, establishing that mankind's ancestors are not like the mankind of today, raising questions about the idea of a human nature. It was in ancient Greece that the Western conception of nature arose. The philosophical study of human nature began with Socrates, who focused on how a person should best live, instead of focusing on the divine. As a rationalist, Socrates believed that the life most conducive to human nature was a life of reasoning. This dominated thought from antiquity until Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau argued against it during the Enlightenment. A fundamental part of the study of human nature is the study of the human soul, with both Plato and Aristotle speaking of how the soul is divided. Plato described three parts of the soul: reason, spirit, and appetite. They believed that philosophers are the highest type of humans, as they are the most rational humans. Aristotle made famous statements about human nature, among these being that man is a conjugal animal (man is an animal born to couple when an adult; clan-sized society), man is a political animal (an animal with a propensity to develop more complex communities in the size of a city or town with laws), and man is a mimetic animal (having the powers of memory and imagination). For Aristotle, all natures are metaphysical concepts, and Aristotle developed the standard presentation of this approach with his "four causes" theory: matter, form, effect, and end (final cause). An oak tree is made of plant cells (matter), grew from an acorn (its efficient cause), exhibits the nature of oak trees (form), and grows into a fully mature oak tree (end). To become a fully actualized human being, one must fully actualize one's intellectual abilities. Christian theology There are two types of Christian theology concerning human nature: spiritual, biblical, and theistic, and natural, cosmical and anti-theistic. Various views of human nature have been put forth by theologians over the ages, such as Man has its origin in God, humans bear the image of God, and humans are to rule the rest of creation. The catechism of the Catholic Church includes Man being the image of God, and the Bible describes two elements of human nature: the body and the spirit of life (breathed into the body by God, creating a living soul). Therefore, the living person was made in the image of God. Being made in the image of God separates humans from beasts, just as Aristotle's reason does. As God is able to make decisions and rule, humans, being made in his image, are also able to do so. A third suggestion is that mankind had an inherent ability to set goals and move towards them, and God denoted creation as a goal, suggesting that the first man was created with the ability to make right choices. ]]Human nature became corrupt following humanity's fall from sin, and both the Old and New Testaments teach that sin is universal. In the New Testament, Jesus taught that all humans are sinners, as we are born with predispositions for sin; Paul says that there is something wrong with the human condition. Nearly 400 years later, Augustine of Hippo coined a term to describe this: "original sin". Original sin is the tendency to sin innate, a tendency (although not an imperative) born in an human beings. Humanity is not as depraved as it could become, with even John Calvin believing that humans are also implanted with justice and rectitude. Adam entirely represents human nature, and the theological doctrine of original sin is a generalization from obvious facts open to historical observation. Augustine was the first Western philosopher to argue against the notion that humans can be educated to not do wrong, instead arguing that humans gain pleasure in knowingly doing wrong, such as when his wealthy friends stole peaches from an orchard (which they could have purchased), only to throw them away (they were motivated by thrill, not poverty or any other causes). In the early 20th century, liberal theologians described human nature as good, needing only proper training and education. More recently, there has been a return to more realistic/Augustinian views of human nature being self-centered, and that human nature must be regenerated to live a good life, just as God regenerated Adam. Christianity believes that Jesus will change human beings, and that he is the perfect image of God. This is explicitly referenced several times in the Bible, including in the Book of Romans, the Book of Colossians, and the Book of Philippians. Modern philosophy ]]One of the defining changes that marked the end of the Middle Ages was the end of the predominance of Aristotelian philosophy, and the term "the law of nature" now applied to any and predictable pattern in nature. Human nature no longer denoted a special metaphysical cause, but whatever could be said about the tendencies typical of humans. In the works of Francis Bacon, Bacon occasionally accepted Aristotle's causes, but he later adapted these terms and rejected the final cause. The same line of thinking returned with Descartes, who returned philosophy to a Presocratic focus on non-human things. Hobbes described humanity as matter in motion, just like machines. He described man's natural state as one where life would be "nasty, brutish, and short", while Locke saw human nature as a "blank slate without rules". Rousseau pressed the approach of Hobbes and Locke (who followed Bacon and Descartes) to the extreme, shocking Western civilization by proposing that humans had once been solitary animals without reason, languages, or communities. He argued that human nature was not fixed, not even close to what had been proposed beforehand. This implied that living under human reason might not be a happy way to live at all, and that there is no ideal way to live. He was absolutely wrong in assuming that early humans were antisocial, as, to Rousseau, he believed in the romanticized version of France's contact with Native Americans (who were regarded as "gentle savages"), not in the truth of human nature in New France. He attempted to use the Native Americans as proof of his unorganized society, but Native Americans were actually members of organized societies, proving him wrong. For Rousseau, a civilized human being is not only unbalanced and unhappy, and that primitive humans were happier as "noble savages". To Rousseau, human nature entailed animal-like passions. In contrast to Rousseau, David Hume opposed oversimplifying Hobbes' approach, accepting that, for many political and economic subjects, humans could be driven by simple selfishness, while also accepting that some of the more social aspects of human nature could be destroyed. For example, if people did not associate in just or righteous societies, these aspects could be destroyed. Hume's views were controversial in his own time, as he avoided metaphysical explanations for any type of cause and effect, and he was accused of atheism. Rousseau's proposal that human nature is malleable influenced international revolutionary movements, while Hume's approaches have influenced philosophy in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the United States. Darwin gave a widely-accepted scientific argument for Rousseau's theory, that humans and animals have no fixed nature, but he also gave biology a way of understanding the causation of human nature. Edward O. Wilson, a sociobiologist, argued against the "blank slate" hypothesis, claiming that it was time for a cooperation of all the sciences to explore human nature. He believed that human nature is a collection of epigenetic rules (the byproducts being cultural phenomena, rituals, artwork, etc.). Category:Philosophy